Friday, February 15, 2008

"Phags" for Phelps

You gotta check out this website: Phags for Phelps. It's based on the idea that the anti-gay vitriol spewed by Fred Phelps and his family is actually helping the cause of gay rights in America.

Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church family just might be the most important GLBT activists since Stonewall. Why? Quite simply, because they give homophobes a bad name. Unlike stealth homophobes, the Phelps clan don't hide their repugnance under a bushel. Every time they appear on the nation's television screens, they show millions of Americans just how ugly unadulterated bigotry is.

Stealth homophobes across America have been able to hide for too long behind cuddly phrases like: "love the sinner, hate the sin," and "separate but equal," and "tolerance." GLBT Americans are tired of being "tolerated." We want to be respected and embraced as true equals, not "loved" as "sinners."

GLBT rights have come a long way over the last four decades since Stonewall. And on these last miles toward equality, it's time to root out those who walk with us and those who are simply patronizing us. The Phelps Clan and their message of hate are exactly the polarizing stimulus necessary to separate the wheat from those who chafe us. (emphasis mine)

The site includes some compelling quotes from Nate Phelps, the estranged son of crazy-man Fred Phelps.

I have always contended that what my father is doing has been more helpful than hurtful to the GLBT cause. I have also been outspoken about the hypocrisy displayed by people only showing outrage for funeral protests when it's directed toward a group other than gays... I'd much prefer to have the in your face, truthful hatred of my family toward gays than the equivocating, hair-splitting justifications of so many in the mainstream who mask their prejudice with cute little sayings like "love the sinner, hate the sin" while they behave with hatred and prejudice by even defining it as sin. (emphasis mine)